Before I go insane...

I have a confession to make. While I have made it to 6 months of giving Abi as much breast milk as I can, I am tired of pumping. I am tired of feeling like a milking cow who's past her prime. I have been tired of latcing and unlatching and trying to get my super distractable baby to pay attention and eat from my right side which has an incredibly slow let down. Lets face it, I was so tired of that that I stopped trying to breast feed and switched to pumping around the time I started sleep training (almost 2 months ago now...) I feel like a failure still. But I didn't give up entirely. So Abi has gotten more breast milk than she would have had I given up months ago. And that is my husbands argument. I want to quit pumping altogether now. I'm already down to two times a day, once at lunch time before playing with Abi at daycare between classes and once at night while trying to study once Abi has gone to bed. To top it off, the time I take to pump at school I could be in the lab practicing my scanning. My school work has always taken a backseat to pumping. Because it had to. But now that it's been 6 months.. and I absolutely have to be able to scan the anatomy correctly to pass my classes and move on.. I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed. I would be in the lab right now if there weren't other students in there desperately trying to practice before their first practical today at noon. Mine is on Thursday (wish me luck! I think I can pass....) But today is my first day after making the decision to cut down to a once a day pumping session, at night after Abi is in bed. Hubby and I had a very long conversation about it last night and I think I'm going to continue to let go slowly. I don't know how well my 4oz combined supply will last with a once a day... When I started this 2x a day pumping it was 5-6 oz each time. So we'll see how long it takes for my supply to adjust to once a day. Hubby says if we can give her a bottle of breast milk every other day at this point, that's what we'll do. Abi will be starting solids as soon as she's over this cold (hopefully before the next one starts!) So we want to be able to thin her first solids with breast milk.. and if that's all we can do with what I pump, so be it. At this point I don't know when I'm going to quit all together. I remember saying that "as long as I pump something, I'll pump and give it to Abi." But now... I feel so selfish, but there are other reasons along with my wanting to quit and have my breasts back. (Not to mention they hurt, my nipples are still purple and cracked even with lanolin.. sorry if that's TMI!) We are planning on buying organic produce and meats (everything in the "dirty dozen" and whatever else we can afford) to help give Abi the best possible foods. I told my husband since I was not able to exclusively breast feed, that we must give Abi organics whenever possible. There's no way around it. We are planning on making our own baby food, which looks like so much fun! I just hope I have enough time when I'm home alone. I've already got a few supplies so that I can freeze a few batches at a time and hopefully that will make things easier. I just hate that I want to quit pumping so badly. I still cry over not being able to feed my baby the way I had originally intended. The way I'm supposed to be able to feed her. Which brings me to another confession; we are thinking we may not have more kids. There are a lot of reasons for this but a major one is the breast feeding issues. I beat myself up so much over it with Abi and I am afraid I'll have the same issues with our next baby. If that's the case, I don't know how I'll handle it. It's been such a rough road, emotionally more than physically, but I just don't know if I could do it again. Then again I think "wow, I'll never be pregnant again.." and that makes me want to rethink it. So we are still in the deciding process. We are young yet, so we have plenty of time to decide. I know that if we do have more kids, I am spending every moment I have free with a lactation consultant. I may hire a dula. I don't know. So that's my bit of crazy for today. :)